Crime takes over the largest city in the north ON PAGE 4

One million dollars in profits from three smuggling ships ON PAGE 4

The unemployed: Official figures don’t believe themselves ON PAGE 5

Meidani decreed only half of Nano’s appointments last night. Brokaj, Dade and Sherifi are still ministers. Only Ceka is gone. Hajdaraga, Rama and others have put on the Prime Minister’s shirt, but not the President’s. The Presidency and the executive in crisis. The power struggle between Nano and Meidani continues

the new crisis in Kosovo, the government of Albania was neither invited nor acknowledged In the grave situation created in Kosovo and amid the diplomatic developments surrounding this issue in the Balkans, the disregard being shown to the Albanian Socialist government and its diplomacy cannot go unnoticed. In recent weeks and days, high-level meetings have been held in various Balkan countries among groups of three or four Balkan states. Although the issue of the new crisis in Kosovo was discussed, the government of Albania was neither invited nor acknowledged. While expressing our well-known opposition to any kind of narrow Balkan grouping, we believe that such an attitude is also the result of the spineless and undignified policy pursued by the Socialist government itself and its diplomacy. One proof of this is the fact that the Socialist government has not reacted to any of these Balkan meetings and groupings, at which the issue of Kosovo was discussed.

The DP condemns the killing of Bujar Suli. The communist clique continues its policy of physically eliminating political opponents

In this event, the problem is 26,000 white coats on strike

In this incident, the problem is not only the mechanism of the crime, but also the mechanism of propaganda that will justify the crime PD 98 TION The home of Bujar Sula (left), Bujar with his wife and children (right) ON PAGE 3

Genc Pollo, first on the list of guests of honor greeting the first congress of Forza Italia PD applauded in Milan Pollo invites Berlusconi to Tirana From Milan, Astrit PATOZI ON PAGE 2

The Albanian state even turned its guns on its own citizens. After destitution, revolution, poverty caused by gangs, the crime now emanating everywhere from the state has broken the citizen. The killing of Bujar Sula is a clear example of a free citizen, expressing himself as a citizen in search. Then his hope is killed by special forces. He is put to sleep and struck with Jakëheldës, an anti-tank weapon, and a Kalashnikov. Then he is killed and made an example of how this state kills people who are sensitive to the state. This is the Albanian state, with a feudal mentality that sees citizens as plebeians, serfs who have no right to think for themselves, to toil, and, if they can, to eat. This is the psychology of a state that comes from violence and stands on its feet thanks to violence. Three days ago the state struck down a citizen who paid. It struck someone who symbolizes civil society, someone whom even their dictatorial predecessors could not eliminate. Along with the citizen, the lives of two special-forces police officers were also destroyed. The mafia state makes no distinction. It is capable of killing anyone who appears before it, solely to preserve fear. What is being prepared, supported by terror, is even more frightening: the birth of an obedient and cowardly person, the education and violation of society’s civic spirit. This is the type of person under dictatorship, which develops through every means of defense, even against free thought. The state is attacking the interests of Albanians. Such a path is the only way to prolong its own life, its own survival, its rule, its oppression. The Levan massacre is the most blatant state attack on tendencies that have been applied in people’s lives, at least over the past five years: to live according to oneself, serve society, form one’s own convictions and also reflect on the life around oneself. These are elementary but essential things for a country that cherishes the future, for a society that seeks to open itself up and move towards civilization. Bujar Sula was one such person. So were the two men in uniform, disguised by their macabre uniforms. All three were citizens who imagined a different state. The police officers, too, thought differently from the government, as did Bujar Sula. They were idealists who had their lives ahead of them. The first, for his thoughts, entirely different from the government, and for his life and beliefs, entirely different from the current state. The other two were idealists in search of the state. They are examples of how the totalitarian state being built by the installed far left exploits people’s idealism, overturns it, puts it to use, and destroys it to the point of death. These are the Kafkaesque transformations wrought by the macabre treatment of people brought about by the revolution, from which one never sees a way out. This is the form of violence against different inclinations. Just as when it intends to suppress them, it does not use guns or violence. This is a form of violence everyone has forgotten—even Pol Pot, who died two decades ago in the forests of Cambodia. But the Albanian communists have not forgotten. They have a model for their state. This model is the most perverse and, in no way, the longest-lasting in Europe. For fifty years it was successful; perhaps this is also why the sons of the murderous fathers have returned once again to the very place that burned away Albanians’ thought, civilization, and desire to live for fifty years in a row.

The mafia state continues its violence against “RD” journalists Government pressure on the newspaper “Rilindja Demokratike” continues. Yesterday, at the Tirana investigative authorities, editor Migen Demirxhi was summoned for questioning regarding a charge brought against her by Finance Minister Arben Malaj. Also yesterday, a summons to a court hearing for “RD” journalist Edi Paloka arrived from the Tirana court, in connection with an accusation by Interior Minister Neritan Ceka. Within the span of just one week, the crime editor experienced the intentions of the Durrës Police Commissariat while on duty, and after that a threat from criminal elements in the middle of the night in his room. This entire anti-RD campaign by government officials aims to frighten opposition journalists and silence them. Such a campaign has taken on unprecedented proportions, especially over the past two months. A series of court cases and threats made over the telephone have targeted the free press and free thought, and the accurate, substantiated information of “RD”. Minister Arben Malaj has filed a tendentious lawsuit against journalist Demirxhi. The facts presented in her article concerning a bank account opened in Brussels had been published just one day earlier in an article in another Tirana daily. Yet it was the newspaper “RD” that was singled out for punishment by the state and its ministers. Former Interior Minister Neritan Ceka chose the same course; while in office, he had warned Paloka that he would send him to prison as soon as he came to power. The terrorist logic of the Albanian state has sent “RD” journalists to investigative offices and courtrooms. Nevertheless, the “RD” team has the courage and strength to punish, through the free press, the mafia state, the smuggling state, the state of poverty and destitution, the thug state, and the government team that has built this criminal network in Albania. Trusting in justice, the “RD” journalists who are now facing prosecution will make clear to Albanian public opinion that those who should be placed in the dock are precisely this government and its government.

State media criminalizes Albanians State media, disregarding all ethical standards and professional norms, hastened to describe the victim of state terror, Bujar Sula, as a wanted criminal. The entire left-wing press and state media hastened to take the Albanian Interior Ministry’s announcement at face value, according to which “Sula was a criminal and a person who had long been wanted.” As has become customary with the pro-government press, which justifies every illegal act by government officials, in the case of the state massacre in Levan too, the deceitful newspapers relied on a single source, without taking the trouble to cite any other source from the scene. The police killing of Albanians without any cause is only one of the media outlets of crime in this kingdom, Albania. The other, worse side is the whispering: the media’s justification of state crime. The better these two sides of the coin function, the less hope there is of escaping the dictatorship installed in the country. Albanian Television and the newspapers openly declared to support today’s government, which have little influence even among readers, are far less guilty than “Gazeta Shqiptare”, which has recently openly come out in defense of state crime. All the criminals and their owners have at one time or another cloaked themselves in declarations of independence while working for a particular criminal state. At a time when Minister Ceka himself has stated that the special forces did not know where they were going, “Gazeta Shqiptare”, with its shamelessness, described the school incident as involving a wanted criminal, even though Sula had for a long time kept his daughters away from the major crime. The morality of the leadership of “Gazeta Shqiptare” and its newspaper staff does not allow them to present anything that would prompt them to seek and learn something beyond what was served up by the Party and the government about Levan, where a citizen and two innocent police officers who had trusted the government lost their lives. Once again, the militant-style coverage by “Gazeta Shqiptare” in justifying events has led Albanians to believe, although they are not at all satisfied with the government’s leadership, that it is an organ of the current criminal government.

Yesterday, Meidani decreed only some of Nano’s nominees. The decree signed by Meidani included the dismissals of Ceka and Legisi and the appointment of Teta Islami as Minister of the Interior and First Deputy Prime Minister. The other names, whether those dismissed or those appointed, still have to wait. Meidani’s demonstrative challenge to Fatos Nano, by keeping the people he appointed in limbo for even a few extra hours, shows that the President likes to make a bit of fun of the Prime Minister. Meanwhile, sources close to the Presidency have confirmed that Meidani’s refusal to approve Nano’s reshuffled government is mainly connected to the name of Bashkim Fino. Nano’s choice of Fino for the post of Deputy Prime Minister, even though Meidani had asked that he not be part of Nano 4’s cabinet, appears to be the main reason for the delay in signing Nano’s nominees. Yesterday Meidani also summoned and praised the line ministers for the good work they had done, thereby devaluing Nano’s nominees. Meanwhile, Brokaj’s disagreement over the position of Minister of Defence can be nothing more than ordinary blackmail, because Nano has already adopted his party’s position to get rid of him. Meidani’s refusal to sign the names of the new nominees put forward by Nano, on the pretext that he is studying them, is in itself an absurdity without merit. A.I.Lu.

US Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott is expected to visit Tirana today, accompanied by a US government delegation that includes Ambassador Robert Gelbard and Keith Shattihan, Special Assistant to President Bill Clinton on the National Security Council (NSC), James Covey. Official sources said the US delegation would discuss the situation in Kosovo and efforts to facilitate dialogue with the Albanian authorities. The delegation is expected to meet President Meidani, Prime Minister Nano, and Foreign Minister Paskal Milo.

In a letter sent yesterday to members of the PS leadership, PD leader Sali Berisha is accused of granting a parliamentary pardon and an unexpected release to Berisha’s associate, Fatos Nano. “It is your direct responsibility,” the letter states, “that you pardoned such people, ordinary convicts who continue to commit serious crimes.” Berisha’s response is not yet known.